Fastrack Ooty :)

Okay, I'm skipping many a few earlier jaunts to post a quickfire note on a super fast, express weekend outing to Ooty somewhere in Jan.

I, need not give an introduction about Ooty as its a household name and a destination for every other traveler, be it a casual traveler, a family traveler, an adventure junkie, a honeymooner, a cyclist or the leisure traveler. All about Ooty or Udhagamandalam on wiki here.

Why I wanted to be here?
On the onset, the touristy, cluttered Ooty is not a popular choice for me, but the charm of the valleys, the estates, the dilapidated landscapes, the chilly weather, the amazing forests, the mouth watering chocolates and most importantly the plentiful, amazing bird life has plenty in offer for me to visit Ooty regularly. I cane myself for this being only my '2nd' visit to Ooty, atrocious indeed!!!

Summary:
We drove down early on a Saturday morning, with the chillness making way for the hot sun all along the way and driving on the hairpin bends via Masinagudi, Kalhatti was a pleasure but the changing landscapes was a sore sight. All, I recall of Ooty of my earlier visit was lush green landscapes confined to a small town but now deforestation is evident everywhere with forests and hillocks making way for homes and hotels. We stayed at the 'Doddabetta Resorts', a quiet place located at the foothill of the 'Doddabetta' peak away from the hustles and bustles of the town.

We spent the entire afternoon at the Botanical gardens looking for the beauties, well I was interested in the beauties and the boys was busy chatting away to glory. Ah! Beauties I meant were the winged beauties and not the walking beauties :) Some tasty chocolate shopping took a lot of time and well the day ended with all of us wrapped in blankets and chatting away after a long period of time, in fact we had grouped after a very long time!

Doddabetta:
We were up quick and the initial ones to reach the peak. As expected the bird life was very much active and all around the place, owing to the crowd yet to come in and the garbage dumps offering plenty of unhygienic food. After spending a couple of early hours here, we came back to the town for a pricey breakfast and took the way towards home.

Notes:
Ooty is very pricey!
Ooty is crowded!
It's pretty cold in the night (non summers) and cool during summers.
Anything you buy is pricey!
Visiting Doddabetta early in the day makes sense as fewer people are there (the gate opens only by 8am).
Botanical garden is the place to go for families and couples alike.
Chocolates are a must buy from here!

There are many other things about Ooty that is not specified, well what is the fun in revealing all, let some secrets remain so!

All these photos are from my Samsung Galaxy Ace 5830i.
Watch out for the Ooty beauties coming up soon :)

Daroji - reaching and Day1

Daroji - Route and Day1

We took the Bangalore-Tumkur-NH4-Chitradurga-SH13-Kudligi-Hospet-Kamalapura and the road stretch on NH4 is great while the SH13 is a two lane laden with heavy truck traffic, yet passable. The last few kms just after TB dam is almost non-existent and you can easily be ridiculed by the non stop honking and the dust and the maddening traffic.

Our agenda was simple, birding all the way… be it the filthy lake on the outskirts of Chitradurga or the canal area at Kamalapur or the FRH campus or the world heritage site Hampi or the fields around Daroji sanctuary and we were amazed by the amount of birdlife in the region what we encountered. Mid way we were also joined by Dr SK Arun and Dr Nagraj from Bellary, both excellent photographers who also helped us in finding many a species, specifically the globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul in Hampi and treated us to a sumptuous lunch at the ethnic Mango tree restaurant in Hampi, quite a famous joint there for locals as well as foreigners.

 ( future perfect or imperfect...? )

We were split into 2 groups and as one of them had a delayed start, we in the other group got plenty of time for birding and butterflying on the Nice road and at a junction near Hiriyur where we spent more than a couple of hours. We had lunch at Chitradurga where the deviation is to be taken towards Hampi, we also spent some time at the filth filled lake on the outskirts of Chitradurga town. The drive thereon was a little slow owing to the dense lorry traffic and the last few kms after TB dam is a nightmare and finally we reached the Kamalapur FRH after a not-so-good dinner at Kamalapur village.

We stayed at the forest department rest house/FRH at Kamalapur close to the JLR Sloth Bear resort. A nice place to stay that has options of rooms, tented cottages as well as dormitory and the food prepared by the cook is needless to say, awesome! I relished each of the dishes with aplomb for the 2 days we stayed there. Summers are pretty hot and winters are better (hot in the day and cool in the night) and monsoon months are unpredictable. Watching birdlife is best during the winters and Jan-Feb is the best time for watching the piggy-back as its the breeding time for the bears.

We started off the next day with a lot of canal birding in the morning and mid-way we were joined by Pompayya, Dr Arun, Dr Nagraj to show us more of the species around. Till then, what was a normal activity for us seeing, spotting, shooting all we could see turned into an exciting journey with Mr. Pompayya leading the way; his spotting skills are amazing going by the fact that he could pin point the exact location of the Eagle Owl’s from a moving vehicle. Highlights of the morning birding activity for me were weavers, munias, cuckoo, wagtails, spotted owlets and the eagle owl.

Mid-day we set out on a mission or I would rather state a wish of seeing the globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul that is found near the matunga hill at world heritage site Hampi. It was no mean task as it was pretty hot at 12 noon and we were boiling over and carrying our cameras and lugging ourselves searching for the elusive bulbuls was not cool either. Finally, after patient waiting and some persistence by Dr Nagraj, I was lucky enough to sight a couple of the elusive ones while many others missed it by a whisker, not a problem as there is always a next time.

After this 'hot' outing, we were treated to a sumptuous lunch at ‘Mango Tree’ restaurant and the dining area here is a terraced slope overlooking river Tungabhadra and yes the name so because of the big mango tree located right in the middle of the restaurant and I could also say that the restaurant is built keeping the natural settings as pristine as possible. Another specialty is that you need to sit on the matted floor, cross-legged in the typical South Indian style and no footwear is allowed inside the restaurant. The food and the spread is worth every penny and this jaunt is visited by a horde of both local and international visitors.

coming up: bears and more bears…

Daroji - A prelude

Daroji is a small village in the Bellary district of Karnataka, also known as the hot bed region as the weather here is too hot to say the least and of late all the mining barons with their heavy machinery have savaged the entire region so much that finally the Supreme court had to intervene to stop this madness. The damage has been done considerably and I wonder how many years / centuries it would take for it to be set right (being positive that it can be set right!). Another problem that is evident here is the politics and the influential people who more or less control all the mining and have ‘billions’ stacked in their kitty, very much evident by their jazzy lifestyle armed with heavy bodyguards, fleet of high-end suave vehicles and not to miss helicopters, jet ships, luxury trailers too! Phew!



In spite of all these, there are some pockets in the region that are thriving (albeit, how long…?) in terms of nature and we should be grateful to some of the ‘brave’ selfless people who are fighting it out every single day against the land mafia, encroachments, mining mafia and all the wrong-doers in preserving what is left and also educating the local people and importantly students on the importance of conservation. Samad Kottur, a wildlife activist, Santosh Martin, honorary wildlife warden of Bellary district and Pompayyaswamy Malemath, a local politician and wildlife activist are few names that pop up immediately who are doing a thankless job against all odds, all for the love of nature and preserving what it left!

(Image: Deepa Mohan; L-R: Pompayya, Santosh & Samad)

An excerpt from Deepa Mohan’s article on the thealternative.in says “One of the most successful efforts in the field of conservation in South India is the effort for Sloth Bears at Bellary, Hospet and Hampi in Karnataka. Today, the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary stands as a heartening reminder of what sincere individual effort can accomplish against powerful and moneyed forces.”


“The hilly areas surrounding the Hampi region are believed to be the mythological ‘Kishkinda’ valley where Jambavantha the Bear (obviously the Sloth Bear) lived. Following the efforts of former Minister and Congress leader M Y Ghorpade, the state declared 5,587.30 hectares of Bilikallu reserve forest as the Daroji Bear Sanctuary. The area is also rich in iron ore and mining which became a huge, unregulated, and depredatory industry here. No ethics or guidelines were laid down or followed in the unbridled plundering of the land’s resources and the Sanctuary was under serious threat as the vested interests in the mining industry combined brute muscle power with high finances.”

I had been to Hampi earlier but never to Daroji or Kamalapur and a email invite from Deepa ensured that would happen. The green cartoonist Rohan, Samrat, Thara, Manjula, Rama Warrier were the others in the troupe and we had 4 awesomeness days of birding, bear’ing and doses of heritage, all in a single package.

(Image: Deepa Mohan, some of us with Santosh/Samad/Pompayya)

We did birding along the canals and fields, thanks to Pompayyaswamy for his guidance, his spotting skills are excellent, we visited the Daroji sanctuary and saw plenty of bears licking the jaggery paste, we went around the heritage Hampi site and had a sumptuous meal at the Mango tree, thanks to the doctors Nagraj and Arun SK for that outing :)


Keep an eye, plenty more to come...